aquarium salt use?

[kylemc]

I have 4 sick clown loaches and a sick pleco. I can't get to town to get the proper medicine for a couple days, all i have is aquarium salt. the problem is ick, not much maybe 5 - 10 dots on each. i moved them to my quarintine tank 10 gal. Is it safe to use aquarium salt on these fish? and will it help till i can get to town?

thanks
kylemc

 

[YoFishboy]

I have had good luck using aquarium salt and raised tank temp on all fish, including loaches and plecs, especially when you catch the ick before it gets really out of hand. There are many threads in the forums that discuss the use of salt for treating ick. Good luck - it definately seems the strains of ick have gotten tougher to beat over the years!

 

[ChileRelleno]

Read this article and/or others pertaining to ICH and treatments,
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/showq...aq=2&fldAuto=32
I recommend using Heat-n-Salt to fight ICH, I'd only use meds if its a very bad case....
But then I've never let it fester long enough to get that bad.

 

[chriss]

Hi, I am a relatively new to the hobby but I have had 2 experiences with ich. My first three fish, platies, had ich and the heat+salt thing worked excellently. The second time, I had 7 baby platies in a breeding net. As they got bigger, I guess they got stressed from the crowding and I saw 2 get ich. Once I moved them to a 3 gallon tank, the ich disappeared within a few days, and it hasn't been back (it has been over 6 wks now). That time I didn't even do the heat+salt thing (afraid to stress out the babies more). With both cases I did daily gravel vacuums, though, to help remove the ich.

Unless your fish are still very little, I wonder if the 10 g tank you have them in now might be too small for all those sick fish, and the crowding might make them worse. Also you may want to be careful with the salt treatment with your loaches and pleco as I have read that they are more sensitive to salt than platies are. My pleco has been ok with 1 tbsp salt/5gal for a short while, though. Hope that helps a bit and good luck!

 

[daveedka]

the ich disappeared within a few days, and it hasn't been back (it has been over 6 wks now). That time I didn't even do the heat+salt thing (afraid to stress out the babies more). With both cases I did daily gravel vacuums, though, to help remove the ich.

There is very little if any chance that you don't still have ich, it must be killed and if it isn't it will remain, on one fish or another out of sight until something causes stress and you have another outbreak. Furthermore when you move fish to a q-tank you will still need to treat the main tank as well unless all fish are moved out of the main tank long enough for the ich to die off.
Dave

 

[Harlock]

FWIW: You don't even have to use aquarium salt. Iodized table salt, non-Iodized table salt, Kosher salt; all can be used to treat Ich.

 

[chriss]

There is very little if any chance that you don't still have ich, it must be killed and if it isn't it will remain, on one fish or another out of sight until something causes stress and you have another outbreak. Furthermore when you move fish to a q-tank you will still need to treat the main tank as well unless all fish are moved out of the main tank long enough for the ich to die off.
Dave

You are possibly quite right about ich still being in my tanks. Here is my reasoning for not treating for it, and please feel free to correct me if I am misinformed. (and sorry this could get a bit long!).

When I got the first case of ich, I went all over the net trying to find info on it. I found all kinds of varying responses, some saying to salt+heat, a few saying definitely don't do that, some saying to use copper meds (I nixed that since copper is rather toxic itself). Then I tried to look for scientific studies on ich, and strangely there were very few. The ones I could find seemed to agree that ich was a parasite with a particular life cycle, and if it couldn't find a host it would die. So I figured that if the ich didn't show up again after many weeks, most if not all of it would be dead.

The only problem was (like you said) the articles also suspected that a fish could be a carrier of ich, and not show any symptoms. But then, since the ich would be living under the skin of the fish, unexposed to the water, heat and salt or medications would not be able to get to it anyway.

So now I just feel that prevention is the best way to go. Some ich may still be in my tank, but if my fish remain unstressed, they shouldn't contract it. All of the ich treatments seem like they are quite stressful for the fish (in particular, the fry are extra sensitive, and a few others are not supposed to like too much salt), which is how they got sick in the first place.

I would certainly like to hear anyone else's thoughts on this!

 

[Harlock]

Well, my thoughts are that Ich prefers unprotected areas of fish to settle on. So, areas not slime coated for instance, like gills, are particularly vulnerable. I have a hard time seeing the gills of most of my tank occupants. Most people never notice Ich until it is on their fish's body. This leads me to believe that a lot of folks have Ich well before they know it or before fish show outward signs of having it. I know salt and heat can kill Ich in a couple of weeks and most fish show litle to no signs of stress with salt/heat. I also know that once Ich is truly gone, it's not coming back unless I introduce it back in by not QT-ing a fish or careless handling of certain wet items like nets, gravel vacs, plants etc that may have been in a QT tank or in an infested tank. So, if I knew I had Ich, even if my fish showed no outward signs of having it, I would treat it, kill it, end my worry and move on. That's just me being practical I suppose.

 

[pkn25]

I think that ick doesn't stay in the tank after a successful treatment. Last year, I had a long stressful bout with ick in my large and fully planted tank. I spent about 3 months trying out almost every medication (Ick Attack, Ick+, RidIck, Copper Safe, Ick Away, etc.) there is except for salt since salt kills plants. I even netted out fish with ick and put them in a hospital tank, but then other fish in the main tank started to have ick too. I ended up wasting most of my plants and most of my fish with either medication or with ick, not to mention the stress and the daily labor of changing water. The whole ordeal cost me hundreds of $ for dead fish, dead plants, and medication.

I finally use the salt-heat (gradually adding salt to about 4.5 Tpsp/gal and 86F) treatment in the hospital tank, bare glass tank with just foam fitration and live food once a day only. This works with every fish (even with delicate clown loaches, cardinal tetras, ...). The key is making the changes slowly, 1 Tbsp and 2 degree F per 12 hours or so. This finally cured ick totally but very slowly, about 3 weeks or so. However, I couldn't use salt in the planted tank and couldn't put all the rest of the fish in the hospital tank.

Finally, I bought a diatom filter (Vortex) from thatpetplace.com for about $70. Boy! This worked wonder. Running this 24/7 for about a week totally eradicate the ick in my main tank without any other treatment. The filter got clogged every 3 days or so and had to be recharged. I just got the diatom powder from the home center ($10 for 25lbs vs. $5 for 1 lb from the pet supplies), just make sure that the powder doesn't have added chlorine. Since then, ick hasn't come back. I still have all the ick medication and salt that I may never use again and I have had ick for months since.

Now, I put newly purchased fish in the quarantine tank and run the diatom filter for about 3-4 days before putting them in the main tank. The diatom filter hasn't been put to work much now that everything is fine.

I now $70 sounds like a big investment, but if I had known what I know now, I would have bought this the first day that my fish got ick. It would have saved my all the money on dead fish, dead plants, medication, and all the stress and laborous daily water changes .

pkn

 

[illiswiller]

Just curious:
Can you please explain why the Diatom filter kills ich?

Another question:
So even if you quarantine new fish - they can still have ich but not spread it until they become stressed (eg. moved to larger tank)? - so does that mean you should always treat the Q-tank w/ salt??

Thanks!